Quote:
Originally Posted by minaras  1)what is the difference between a man that is alive and a man that is dead?
2)Reproduction seems to be one of the most ancient properties.
3)What happens with the ntropy of living systems that are chemical reactions?
1a)homeostasis simply is the cataloge of the chemical reactions that are still happening, and just because they keep happening, the organism is alive.
2b)the complex organic compounds that are composing living creatures probably are the results of many years of reactions, or else they are the fingerprints of the reactions from the beginning of all the reactions till today.
3c)because human is a very complicated system of reactions that all depend from each other |
First, Minaras, forgive me for renumbering your points, but I wanted to reference them without confusion.
minaras: 3)What happens with the ntropy of living systems that are chemical reactions?
JAK: Nobel Prize winning physicist, Erwin Shrodinger, addressed this admirably in his 1943 book, "What is Life?" The universe, according to many, is headed toward "heat death" - a time when there is no available energy to perform "work". Without work cycles, no life can exist. Life, if anything, must be an active process. Heat death is when the universe attains total equillibrium. This is also a state of maximum entropy. According to Shrodinger, to survive, a life form must climb in the opposite direction - away from equillibrium states, away from entropy, and toward states allowing work cycles. He called this opposite direction "negative entropy". Where entropy is a measure of disorder and chaos, negative entropy is a measure of order and complexity.
minaras: 1)what is the difference between a man that is alive and a man that is dead?
JAK: At death, entropic forces exceed negative entropic activities.
minaras: 2)Reproduction seems to be one of the most ancient properties.
JAK: True. But it does not need be considered a requirement of life. If a life form moves toward negative entropy without reproduction, it still satisfies Schrodinger's principle.
minaras: 1a)homeostasis simply is the cataloge of the chemical reactions that are still happening, and just because they keep happening, the organism is alive.
JAK: Homeostasis occurs in systems which maintain their level of order (do not degrade toward maximum entropy).
minaras: 2b)the complex organic compounds that are composing living creatures probably are the results of many years of reactions, or else they are the fingerprints of the reactions from the beginning of all the reactions till today.
JAK: This has the "ring of truth" to it. Mitochondria, which are the components of cells which generate energy, may have come from symbiotic creatures in the evolutionary past which have become part of our being.
minaras: 3c)because human is a very complicated system of reactions that all depend from each other
JAK: This is a reasonable description of life.